Retirement
by Wombaat
Summary: Harry must unexpectedly face the point in his life that we all must, and work out where he goes from there. Rated for language.


I don't own zip, nix, nada or the books would be written a lot worse.

This first chapter is a little rough and will probably get cleaned up as the story develops.

* * *

Harry sat there in the meeting room at Saint Mungo's, head in his hands, thinking.

"30 years. 30 years and it's probably over. What the fuck are we going to do now?"

The door to the room opened and in filed his section head, the undersecretary assigned to the DMLE administrative department and Healer Ireland.

The three took seats along one side of the conference table and gestured Harry to sit facing them all.

Ernie McMillan shuffled some papers around in front of him, then looked Harry in the eyes. "Have you got any thoughts, Mister Potter?" He asked formally.

"There's not a lot I can do is there?" Harry asked with a sigh. "I don't have the paper qualifications to slot into a management role and Healer Ireland there has informed me of the consequences of me continuing as I have been."

"No there's not and you only have yourself to blame. Your records show that you were offered positions, but you always turned them down." The undersecretary piped up. "Too busy chasing glory and too arrogant to see what was best for you."

Harry just glared at the little man, "Best for me? Best for the ministry you mean you stuck up little shitstain. The ministry just didn't want their precious 'Man-Who-Conquered' out there chasing down their relatives that took that bastards mark. You should be thanking your lucky stars, fuckwit, that my team and I were out there cleaning up that mess you purebloods left at the end of the war. Pardon everyone so we can heal as a society. Bullshit. Deals for the so-called fucking elite you mean. But what do you fucking care? You just take after your asshole of a father. He never would have even acknowledged his family if it wasn't for the deals made to get him out of the shit he dealt himself. Just sit there and do what you're fucking told you little matchstick before I burn that fucking red off your dome."

"And that's the other reason you never took management jobs" muttered Ernie "too much exposure to Mad-Eye after they patched him up again after the war," before gathering himself and interrupting what was developing into an O grade rant. "Hit Wizard Potter! That is well and truly enough! Healer Ireland, can you please give us the details of what comes next?"

Harry subsided back into his chair, glared at the paper-pusher once more and then directed his much more respectful attention towards the healer.

Brett Ireland spoke up for the first time, secretly impressed with the utter bollicking just issued by his long-time patient, "Mister Potter. As we discussed earlier during your health review, you cannot keep going into battle as a hit wizard. You've stressed your body with injuries, you've pushed your core just too many times for it to remain stable in high pressure situations and to be brutally honest you're just getting too old for the requirements of the job. You're nearly 50 man and chasing wannabe dark lords all over Great Britain is a young mans game."

Looking at Harry to see if he was getting through. "I am recommending your duties be restricted to sedentary desk based duties only. You're not going to be good for anything in your team unit your leg heals anyway and we cannot speed it up because of the curse you were hit with. The next step I will be taking is to recommend a medical discharge for you from the service. You can appeal it of course but I hope you don't. It's time to retire lad, before you do something you can't recover from." The last was said in a much more compassionate tone than the rest of the healers statement.

Harry sat there. His demeanor shrinking in on itself. "Ernie?" He looked over at his section head.

"I'm sorry Harry, but it's time mate."

Brett spoke up again. "You're on half days until your leg recovers. I'm a big fan of some muggle treatments so I've set you up with physiotherapist visits and you Will attend them." He finished with a pointed finger at the sullen man sitting across from him. To be met with the non-verbal response of an upraised ring finger.

The red-headed undersecretary decided to throw his two bobs in as well, perhaps a trifle vindictively "The paperwork will be submitted forthwith to begin your discharge from the service. Ensure you read up on the requirements of this prior to the separation date."

"Weasley!" barked Ernie again. "Get the fuck out of here, before I hex you myself."

Undersecretary Weasley gathered his papers and fled with a small "eep."

The departure of the redhead left behind a pregnant silence, finally broken by Brett, "Don't worry Harry. The paperwork takes an age to process. You'll have heaps of time to sort stuff out."

"God, I hope so. How am I going to tell Hermione?"

Ernie snorted "What? You say that like she won't take one look at you as you walk into the house and know it all better than you know yourself." Then he grinned to himself. "I wish I was a fly on the wall when Weasley's grandmother catches up to him when she finds out what he did in here today."

Harry and Brett smirked a little, the smirks growing into grins before Brett broke into a full-throated belly laugh, rapidly followed by Harry and Ernie. "It'll be a howler up close and personal from Molly. I nearly, well, not really to be honest, feel sorry for the little prat."

"Look. Head home and talk to your wife. Give her my best by the way. We'll see you on Monday. Try to look at it as a positive. You can finally settle down and do what you want, not what people expect." Ernie said as he rose with Healer Ireland to head out.

Harry sat there alone with his thoughts for a few moments, before levering himself to his feet. Taking the crutches, he had to use until the tendons and ligaments in his right knee healed, a souvenir from his last action, that landed him in front of the medical review panel he'd just had. Making his way to the curb outside the hospital he held up his wand. With a bang and flash of purple smoke the deathtrap called the Knight Bus appeared.

Climbing into the rear of the triple story bus, Harry called to Stan Sturnpike, interrupting his usual spiel regarding the bus, "Crown Street, Oxford" and passed over the requisite seven sickles, heartily wishing he could simply flue or apparate but the risk to his healing knee was just too great.

Stan, a little miffed that his introduction has been cut off, let him know "You might have to wait a bit, there's a queue ahead of you right now."

"That's fine Stan. Just let me know when we get there."

With another even larger bang and plume of smoke the triple decker bus shot off on its rounds.

32 minutes later, Stat announced, to a nearly empty bus and much more affected by pain in his knee, Harry, that they'd arrived at Crown Street, Oxford.

Hobbling off the bus, Harry approached the terrace house at number 5 and made his way painfully up the front steps. Opening the door and entering the hallway, he put his wand into the bowl on the hallway side table before calling out "Hello, I'm home!"

Rapid footsteps were heard, chased down by the figure making them as a small boy, appearing to be about 11 years old barreled into Harry and began babbling the way young children are know to do. "Daddy, Daddy. You're home! I missed you."

Harry's smile lit up his face for the first time that day, "Yes my little man, I'm home. Have you been good for your Mum?"

"Uh Huh! I drew her a picture at school today and she hung it on the fridge. It's of you and me and Mummy and Lee and Uncle Ron and Grammy and Poppy and Paddy and Hedwig."

"Well then you'll just have to show it to me. Do you know where Mummy is?"

"Uh huh. In her work room."

"Ok. You go back to you're drawing and I'll come see in a minute. OK?"

Harry headed down the hall to the back of the house to the specially warded office that his wife had claimed as a workroom to continue to do spell research. They'd had to ward the room off from the rest of the house so as not to affect the muggle electrical wiring and devices that were used throughout the home.

Tapping on the door, Harry waited for a moment before it opened and Hermione stepped out. She was dusty, a little disheveled and had a small smear of bright green ink across the left side of her jawline, but Harry, once more, thanked the gods that of all people in the world, she'd chosen him.

_They'd drifted apart somewhat after leaving Hogwarts. Both of them had returned for an eighth year, which had sounded the death knell of an aborted relationship between Hermione and Ron who'd followed his brother into his joke shop, and had dated briefly during the final year of study before separating to pursue their careers after graduation. Harry disgusted with the state of the wizarding world had jumped back on the horse and entered the hit wizard program of the DMLE. The hit wizards were the ones called upon when regular Aurors were just not capable of dealing with a criminal. They weren't hindered by investigation or process. If the hit wizards were called in, that had already been done. They would be there to contain the situation as quickly and cleanly as possible. Trained by Mad-Eye Moody who'd, much to everyone's surprise, survived the war and had been found in an induced coma in a London hospital due to injuries sustained, including the loss of one arm. Harry had reveled in the role, taking to it like a duck to water. Happy to be 'on the coalface, making a difference.'_

_Hermione had been recruited by the department of mysteries directly out of Hogwarts and spent the next few years, moving from section to section before discovering her passion in spell research. Making a name for herself in the department she was often called upon when esoteric magic was encountered by teams in the field. _

_It was here that the two crossed paths once again. Sparks flew, one date became two, became many, before a summer engagement was followed by a spring wedding. The couple settled down into ministry housing and happily went along with their lives before welcoming their first child, Lee David Potter, just before Harry turned 30. After the family settled a few years later they welcomed a second child into the world, Jacob Evan Potter, was born. Unlike his brother Jacob was a quiet child and would sit there and watch the world go by, while Lee would rather interact with it._

_Time went by and on his 11__th__ birthday, Lee received his Hogwarts letter, and off he went to the school where he was sorted into the house of his parents. The family adapted and when Jacob's letter came and they went to Diagon Alley to get his supplies, the wand maker Ollivander was unable to pair him with a wand. Even a custom-built wand would not bond with the child. Unlike his brother Jacob had never had bouts of accidental magic as he grew, he undoubtably had a magical core but it did not seem to project. It was one of Harry and Hermione's worst fears, Jacob was diagnosed as Magically disabled. Similar to high functioning Autism, children who were magically disabled were able to interact with the world to a certain extent though often in a child-like manner, but their magic would only allow one or two abilities to manifest. It was decided, with not a small amount of relief, that young Jacob would not attend Hogwarts and Hermione would remain home to care and educate him in his gifts. Their house had been wired for electricity previously and to allow a normal experience for Jacob, magic was restricted to certain parts of the home._

_In the two years since Jacobs diagnoses, Hermione had worked out what his magic was doing. He had the sight. Not of the future, but of the past. He would see past events with startling detail and was encouraged to communicate what he saw through drawing._

Which has led us to today.

Hermione pulled herself back from Harry's embrace. Looking up into his eyes. "What happened?"

Harry sighed and pulled her into the kitchen and began to make a cuppa. "They're retiring me, and I don't know what I'm going to do next."

He looked up from where he was pouring the hot water at his wife of over 20 years. "I just don't know."

Hermione seeing the lost look in her loves eyes, stood up and took his hands in her own "Whatever happens, we'll just do what we always do. We'll face it together."


End file.
